


Shot Through the Heart

by emynii, ObliObla



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Episode: s05e02 Lucifer! Lucifer! Lucifer!, F/M, Hell, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:08:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26203216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emynii/pseuds/emynii, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObliObla/pseuds/ObliObla
Summary: Chloe intends to find out who's wearing Lucifer's face, but the answer isn't what either of them expect.
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 21
Kudos: 108





	Shot Through the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> > Didn't somebody somewhere say you're gonna take a fall  
> I gave you everything, now here's the curtain call
>> 
>> And I'm shot through the heart as I lay there alone  
> In the dark through the heart  
> It's all part of this game that we call love
> 
> -Bon Jovi 

“Once we do this... “ Chloe’s voice is soft, warm, filled with longing. “Things will never be the same.”

He chuckles softly, anticipation flooding him. “I believe you’re right.” 

She steps back, reaches for the buttons of her shirt, and—

_Bang._

He doesn’t expect the shot, doesn’t expect to fall backwards, confusion on his face as he reaches for where the bullet hit.

“Once I shot Lucifer to prove he was the Devil,” Chloe says, gun in hand, “and now I’m shooting you to prove you’re not.”

His hand comes away from his leg. There is no blood.

She nods. “That’s what I thought.”

He stares at his fingertips, then looks up at her, at the barrel of her firearm, pointed right at him. There’s no familiarity left in her gaze, and he doesn’t understand until, suddenly, he does.

Lucifer was, quite simply, gone too long.

Not for Chloe—not for her to forget her love, because it’s as plain on her face as anything has ever been. No. It was he who changed, who devoted himself in ways he never had before. No longer simply a punishment but a duty. To keep them safe. One he would have sacrificed anything for.

“Don’t have anything to say for yourself?”

One he sacrificed _everything_ for.

“I…” He doesn’t know how to explain, not in words, not in air that doesn’t stink of brimstone and ring with the screams of the damned. “I spent thousands of years in Hell. Detective, I—”

“Don’t call me that.”

“But Chloe—”

“Just _stop.”_

He’d clung to that word down in the dark. He’s lost so much, but not that. Never that. He should’ve forgotten—it would have been easier—but he never could. Too afraid to lose the reason he was down there in the first place. That he would no longer remember the importance of this duty. But with memory came anguish, then desire, in that place so ill-built for it. And he had failed. He had failed to stop himself from abandoning everything, and that was his downfall.

“I knew something was off the first time I kissed you,” she says, dragging him from his thoughts.

“It’s not—”

“But you always had such good explanations, such good lies.”

“Not to you.” Everything is breaking. _“Never_ to you.”

Even his most cherished principles he’d sacrificed. For them. For _her._ And as he denied his own truth, his own desires out of this need to be responsible, to do the right thing, he had seen that truth turn to deception as desire twisted to fear. And he had almost welcomed it. Didn’t it make things easier when the only ones to hear it were the demons and the damned? Wasn’t it almost right that the power match the position?

“I wanted to believe you.”

“Detective...” he says again, standing. She winces. He tries to step forward, but she takes a step back and aims for center mass again. She can’t hurt him now, but...can’t she?

“But then I saw you with Maze” She shakes her head. “That’s when I knew.”

He hangs his head. _Mazikeen._ He saw her, and everything had come flooding back. How much he’d once relied upon her. All those years together down in perdition. He needed to escape his head, to lose himself in something familiar and without feeling. “I can explain if you just let me—”

“Lucifer would _never_ do that to me.” Tears cling to her lashes. He wants to go to her, to comfort her. But he’s always been poison, hasn’t he? Even to those he loves. _Especially_ to them. “Who _are_ you?”

“I…”

He kept himself distant for eons, tried not to let Hell touch him. But what was the point when this was all there was for him? What did it matter that he never was the slanderer the world called him if he’d never be in that world again? What did he have left to prove? So he had made of himself the monster he was cast as. Finally. But now...

“You are no Lucifer.”

It seems the things he wrote in his soul with the blood of sinners by knives of hell-forged steel aren’t so easily erased.

“I don’t know who you are or why you’re here, and I don’t care.”

“It’s _me._ Your partner. Don’t you...don’t you know that?”

She sniffs, ignoring his words. The serpent, they called him once. The father of lies. It had never been true before, but now it is, and her trust is gone. “But I’m glad, because you made me realize that all my fears that Lucifer had changed were just that. They were _fears.”_

“But I…” This change has been hard won over thousands of years. Going back to who he once was hasn’t proved as simple as falling into the arms of his beloved. No, the Devil has come to Earth, and he has brought Hell with him. He just didn’t expect it to hurt this much.

“What Lucifer and I have is special, it’s _real._ It doesn’t matter how many lies you tell me—”

“Det— _Please._ I’m not lying!”

“—I will never lose faith in me and him.”

And, well, that’s that, then, isn't it? No one understands misspent faith better than the Devil, and it seems the wages of this sin are to be close enough to touch, yet never able to reach. And the worst irony of all—if she can’t believe this person he’s made himself could possibly be him, did she ever truly understand him?

She gestures with her gun. “It’s time for you to go.”

He nods slowly. There doesn’t seem to be anything left to say, but he has to try. One last time, he _has_ to try. “Why don’t we make a deal?”

She scowls. She thinks he’s mocking her, mocking _them._ But he can’t worry about that now. “Why should I do _anything_ for you?” Her voice has never been so cold.

He should just leave, should abandon the idea she’ll ever understand. But he gave up so much for this. Too much. And some part of him—the part that stood on the balcony and whispered “goodbye”—needs to explain, even if she never believes. It’s selfish, maybe, but he’s never been a saint. “Because I’ll fulfill my end of the bargain.”

“What’s your end of the bargain?” she hisses.

He shrugs, the casual gesture belying his rapidly beating heart, the cold sweat at his hairline. “I’ll leave...and never come back.”

 _Bang._ A second gunshot. Right over the heart. It’s oddly apropos.

This is cruel, but the old Lucifer, the one Chloe loved, he was cruel too. “You know that won’t kill me.”

There’s fear on her face, and he’s already regretting this.

“Please, just...” He sighs. “If you ever see Lucifer again, would you tell him something?”

She still looks wary, but she hasn’t run away, and she hasn’t shot him yet. For him, for _now,_ it’s rather a win.

“Tell him I didn’t mean for it to be like this. Tell him—” He inhales sharply. “Tell him that I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head, lips thin. “Get out.”

He’s gone before her tears start, shifting through dimensions. He fell once by failing, rebellion in ruin as he looked up at a swirling, ash-ridden sky, skin warped by pain and fire and shame. Now, he falls because he managed exactly what he set out to do.

Lucifer lands on the cobblestones amid the labyrinthine corridors and endless doors of Hell. He doesn’t look up at the sky this time; there’s nothing left there for him there. This is where he truly belongs. His home. The only one he’s ever had.

He stands, alone, amidst the desolation of Hell, gall on his tongue, nothing left behind his eyes, a gaping hole where his heart once was, and laughs and laughs and laughs.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
